My stomach flips again as I stare into the gorge that is racing past less than a metre from the car’s passenger window. Far below the narrow, twisting road, I can see the thin line of a river. A sheer mountain wall that waits to crush any vehicle foolish enough to wander from its lane scrolls past on the other side of the car. A bend comes at us. I close my eyes but can’t escape the centrifugal force and my sense of dread as we hurtle around the turn above the precipitous drops.
We’re on our way from Islamabad to Gilgit along Karakoram Highway, one of the world’s most dangerous roads. We didn’t plan it this way. When my friend Jens Kjaer Knudsen had invited me to accompany him on an ibex hunt in Pakistan, we intended to travel by plane to Gilgit Airport. However, that was before unfavourable weather forced
